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Field-induced quantum criticality in the Kitaev system αRuCl3

A. U. B. Wolter, L. T. Corredor, L. Janssen, K. Nenkov, S. Schönecker, S.-H. Do, K.-Y. Choi, R. Albrecht, J. Hunger, T. Doert, M. Vojta, and B. Büchner
Phys. Rev. B 96, 041405(R) – Published 13 July 2017
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Abstract

αRuCl3 has attracted enormous attention since it has been proposed as a prime candidate to study fractionalized magnetic excitations akin to Kitaev's honeycomb-lattice spin liquid. We have performed a detailed specific-heat investigation at temperatures down to 0.4K in applied magnetic fields up to 9T for fields parallel to the ab plane. We find a suppression of the zero-field antiferromagnetic order, together with an increase of the low-temperature specific heat, with increasing field up to μ0Hc6.9 T. Above Hc, the magnetic contribution to the low-temperature specific heat is strongly suppressed, implying the opening of a spin-excitation gap. Our data point toward a field-induced quantum critical point at Hc; this is supported by universal scaling behavior near Hc. Remarkably, the data also reveal the existence of a small characteristic energy scale well below 1 meV, above which the excitation spectrum changes qualitatively. We relate the data to theoretical calculations based on a J1K1Γ1J3 honeycomb model.

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  • Received 11 April 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.041405

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

A. U. B. Wolter1,*, L. T. Corredor1, L. Janssen2, K. Nenkov1, S. Schönecker3, S.-H. Do4, K.-Y. Choi4, R. Albrecht5, J. Hunger5, T. Doert5, M. Vojta2, and B. Büchner1,6

  • 1Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung (IFW) Dresden, 01171 Dresden, Germany
  • 2Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
  • 3Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm 10044, Sweden
  • 4Department of Physics, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 156-756, Republic of Korea
  • 5Fachrichtung Chemie und Lebensmittelchemie, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
  • 6Institut für Festkörperphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany

  • *Corresponding author: a.wolter@ifw-dresden.de

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 4 — 15 July 2017

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